Fundamentals

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Alex, the Co-Founder and CEO of Matter Labs – the engineering team behind zkSync – a Layer-2 blockchain protocol that scales Ethereum with zero knowledge technology. In this episode with Alex, we discuss what zkSync’s core value proposition is, and why zero-knowledge proofs are the most viable technology to enable the mainstream adoption...

In this episode, we’re joined by Alex Wettermann, the Head of Gaming at Shima Capital – an early stage VC firm investing in disruptive web3 companies. Alex gives us an overview of the current state of the web3 gaming market, and walk us through the key trends, challenges and potential opportunities within the space. Alex highlights the importance of looking beyond trends like 'play to earn&#39...

In this episode, we’re joined by Rennick Palley, Founding Partner at Stratos – a fund that seeds the future of crypto. Stratos focuses on both Venture, where they invest in DeFi and web3 companies, and Infra, where they provide the hardware, stake, and expertise that helps blockchains grow.   We discuss Stratos, their investment strategy, and how they approach the market. We then move on to speak...

In this episode we’re joined by Benjamin Mincu, the Founder and CEO of MultiversX – a Layer 1 blockchain, designed from scratch to bring a 1000-fold cumulative improvement in throughput and execution speed. To achieve this, MultiversX introduces two key innovations: a novel adaptive state sharding mechanism, and a secure proof of stake algorithm, enabling linear scalability with a fast, efficient,...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Mathijs van Esch, who is an associate partner at Maven 11 – a crypto-native fund that partners with brave outliers challenging the status quo by redefining ownership. We discuss Maven 11, their investment strategy, and how they approach the market. The characteristics of crypto that make it an attractive asset class, and how Maven 11 ana...

In this episode, we’re joined by Jayendra Jog, the Co-founder of Sei – a general purpose, open-source Layer 1 blockchain offering infrastructure optimized for the exchange of digital assets. We discuss what Sei is and what the main optimizations are that they have focused on. We cover the current state of the blockchain market sector, and Sei’s position within it. We discuss striking a balance bet...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Jason Kam, the founder of Folius Ventures – a fund that invests in, evangelizes, and builds web3 initiatives. We discuss Folius Ventures, their investment strategy, and how they approach the market. We speak about project discovery, due-diligence, decision-making, and the role that data plays in analyzing investment opportunities. We the...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Niklas Kunkel, the Founder of Chronicle – an oracle service born out of MakerDAO’s Oracle Core Unit that will be launching publicly in September 2023. To cover the basics, Oracles are decentralized networks that bridge critical information from the real world to the blockchain. Chronicle currently provides exclusive support to MakerDAO’s...

In this episode, were joined by Dominic Williams, the Founder and Chief Scientist as DFINITY, a major contributor to the internet computer blockchain. The Internet Computer is a general-purpose blockchain that hosts canister smart contracts. It is designed to provide a World Computer that can replace traditional IT and host a new generation of Web3 services and applications that run solely from th...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by James and Vincent, the founders of Modular Capital – a crypto investment firm with a fundamental and thesis-driven approach. In this episode, we discuss Modular Capital, their investment strategy, the underwriting process, and how they work with the projects they invest in. We discuss what makes crypto interesting, and what the most comm...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Evan Fisher, the founder of Portal Ventures – a fund that is accelerating the protocol economy through business fundamentals. Portal Ventures identifies and supports crypto businesses that will define the next generation of our economy. They advise on strategy, roadmap, go-to-market, value capture, fundraising, and more. In this episode...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Getty Hill, the Co-Founder of GFX Labs, a multi-faceted blockchain research and development company. GFX Labs operates as both a crypto products studio and an active DAO governance contributor. On the product side, GFX has built various products including Interest Protocol, Web3 Sheets, and most recently the advanced DeFi trading platfor...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by H.E. Justin Sun, the Founder of Tron – a layer 1 blockchain. We discuss Tron’s position within the blockchain market and the core optimizations they have focused on. We also uncover the drivers behind Tron’s market-leading user activity numbers, speak about the network’s impressive traction in emerging markets, what perspective blockchai...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Chris Abiaad, the founder of frens capital – a thesis-driven investment fund focused on liquid digital assets. frens capital’s strategy is to make long-only investments based on fundamentals and the core principles of value investing. We discuss frens capital's investment strategy and what makes web3 interesting from an investor'...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we're joined by Kain Warwick, the founder of Synthetix – a derivatives liquidity protocol providing the backbone for derivatives trading in DeFi. Synthetix is built on Ethereum and OP Mainnnet. How it works is that synthetic assets, and associated products, are collateralized by stakers via the SNX token, which when locked in a staking contract enab...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, I’m joined by Michael Nadeau, a crypto data and research analyst and author of the DeFi report. In this episode with Michael, we explore how blockchains can be valued, especially from the perspective of more traditional and institutional investors. We discuss the main differences between traditional assets and crypto assets - focusing on L1 blockchains...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, I’m joined by Darren Camas and Dimitar Dinev, the Co-Founders of IPOR Protocol. IPOR is a non-custodial exchange for interest rate swaps built on Ethereum. As a DeFi protocol, IPOR refers to a series of smart contracts that provide a benchmark interest rate and enable users to access Interest Rates Derivatives on the Ethereum blockchain. IPOR is an abbr...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, I’m joined by Arno Bauer, a Senior Solution Architect at BNB Chain. BNB Chain is a smart contract platform for decentralized applications and is currently the most widely used blockchain. BNB Chain is made up of an ecosystem of blockchains, comprising of the BNB beacon chain for staking and governance, the BNB smart chain which is an EVM-compatible smar...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, I’m joined by Pablo, the Co-Founder of Angle Protocol – a decentralized Euro stablecoin protocol. In this episode with Pablo, we discuss what Angle is, how it works, its core value proposition, and its position within the market. We also get an overview of Angle’s smart contract infrastructure, how they ensure robust security, the team behind the projec...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Rune Christensen, Co-Founder of MakerDAO – a decentralized stablecoin protocol built on Ethereum, and the first-ever DAO. Maker recently published their Endgame plan, which is a roadmap for a significant overhaul and improvement to the governance and tokenomics of the Maker Ecosystem. Its primary aim is for the ecosystem to reach a self-...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by John McNiff and Felipe Montealegre, the founders of Theia Blockchain – a fundamentals-driven investment fund that is applying the principles of prudent investing to blockchain. We discuss Theia’s founding story, their investment strategy and underwriting engine, what fundamentals mean in crypto, and the main KPIs that Theia is looking fo...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Shawn Tabrizi, Lead Developer at Polkadot. Polkadot is the first fully-sharded blockchain, i.e. it is a multi-chain environment. Polkadot enables scalability by allowing specialized blockchains to communicate with each other in a secure, trust-free environment. In our interview with Shawn, we discuss Polkadot’s core value proposition, th...

In this episode of the Fundamentals podcast, we’re joined by Greg Skril, a core contributor at Ethereum Name Service (ENS). ENS is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain. ENS’s job is to map human-readable names like ‘alice.eth’ to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata. In ou...

Scoopy Trooples, Co-Founder of Alchemix, joined us for an episode to discuss what Alchemix is and how it works, the protocol’s use cases, target customer profile, economic and business models, current growth drivers and challenges, the most exciting things coming up, the team behind the project, and more! Alchemix’s dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/alchemix-finance Alchemix S...

Merlin Egalite, Co-Founder of Morpho – a lending pool optimizer that operates a peer-to-peer layer built on top of lending pools such as Compound and Aave – joined us for an interview to dive into the details behind Morpho-Aave V3, and the teams approach to building a truly secure protocol. Tune in to learn about the new features that come with Morpho-Aave V3, the details behind Morpho’s smart con...